What do you say to people who just say this isn’t a normal way of life?
“Thank you very much”
(from “Off the Grid on a Homemade Island” by Great Big Story)
The artists Catherine King and Wayne Adams, wife and husband, live in Canada on a floating oasis of art and nature.
Bizarre and dreamy, “Freedom Cove” in Vancouver Island, can only be reached by water. On the island, formed by a series of platforms, everything floats: the dance floor on which Catherine, a former dancer, still dances, the lighthouse building and the four greenhouses in which she has grown her garden-orchard, and the art gallery.
In response to the explicit question: “Do you ever get seasick?” Wayne states: “No, we get landsick”.
It is precisely this intolerance that led them to move away from the city in 1992 and pursue the dream of building a self-sufficient island, almost another world.
“I can’t imagine living any other way” (Catherine King)
The experiment has now become a lifestyle, which has allowed them to “prosper” on the water, feeding on what they receive from nature, like the fish caught by Wayne – sometimes he fishes in slippers lying on the sofa through a trapdoor in the floor – and the vegetables grown by Catherine.
We cannot know for sure if they took inspiration from Thoreau and his book Walden, but surely Catherine and Wayne make us reflect on man’s ability to choose and change.
Articles and videos:
Off the Grid on a Homemade Island by Great Big Story
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